People are talking about bitcoin again, and the blockchain’s ears are burning. The price of BTC plunged 8 percent yesterday. That’s a total drop of 36 percent in May. From $64,000+ down to $34,000 in just a little over a month. Meanwhile, police in the UK were searching for what they thought was an illegal cannabis farm and found an illegal bitcoin mine instead. Sheetz, a convenience store chain in the Mid-Atlantic states, will be accepting bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) for payment through Flexa. I see a lot of Sheetz in the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania area when I’m there. Rumor has it that Tom Brady is invested in crypto—maybe even bitcoin—but there are no signs that he’s behind the current deflation.
Thanks to the crash, Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin is no longer a billionaire. So saaaaaaad.
But, could it be time to buy Ethereum?
If you’ve been watching Ethereum 2, there could be reasons to believe it is more green, scalable, and efficient than Ethereum. What do you think?
PayPal and Venmo are getting with the program. Both apps are planning to allow hodlers to send their crypto to third-party apps. That makes me giddy. Earlier this year, I decided to test drive SoFi Invest only to find out the only way to get my bitcoin back is to close my account. I haven’t done it yet, but I’m closing my account.
NatWest is warning users to beware of crypto scams.
Recently, a crypto whale blew $878 million in bitcoin to two wallet addresses. The blockchain is a wonderful thing, allowing anyone to audit transactions. However, the information in the blocks don’t say who the sender and receiver are, so who is this anonymous whale? It is Satoshi? Elon freaking Musk? John “the virus” McAfee? Only God knows. Well, and whoever this whale is.
On a brighter note, North America is getting its first crypto beer.
Monero-Bitcoin atomic swaps are now live on the COMIT Network mainnet.
Not to be outdone by Tesla, Carl Icahn is contemplating a $1.5 billion investment in crypto. Is this news intended to drive up the price of bitcoin again so that a few whales—maybe even Icahn himself—can sell off recent purchases at the low point and see a nice profit, or is it legitimate news? This is the same guy who once called crypto fans “ridiculous.”
Neobank Paybby is planning to offer cryptocurrency investing to “Black” and “Brown” communities.
In Australia, crypto investors must report profits or face penalties, maybe even tax evasion charges.
Coinbase has launched a Fact Check Blog. CEO Brian Armstrong wrote a blog post subtitled, “Decentralizing truth in the age of misinformation.”
Just what we need. More companies telling us what to believe, identifying fake news for those of us with brains.
Honestly, I agree with him. Armstrong lays out three paths for companies hit with negative news, especially news that isn’t true. His three paths include “turn the other cheek,” come out fighting, or simply “publish the truth.” Or, at least, truth as they see it.
I’ve been an advocate of brand journalism for over a decade. More brands should do it.
Now, back to crypto news and sugar stews …
One crypto trader admits he has a cryptocurrency addiction.
Divorces can be messy. Dividing crypto assets when the War of the Roses comes to an end can be even messier.
In Dubai, authorities warn against a fake Dubai cryptocurrency. The company behind the cryptocurrency called the Dubai Coin “the official cryptocurrency for the city of Dubai.” Dubaicoin jumped over 1,000 percent in value. Evidently, there’s no real Dubaicoin.
Dubai Coin cryptocurrency was never approved by any official authority.
The website promoting the coin is an elaborate phishing campaign that is designed to steal personal information from its visitors. pic.twitter.com/Q0HBXfqaDO— Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) May 27, 2021
Mark Cuban shares what he looks at when he evaluates blockchains. But what does he get wrong about crypto?
Can cryptocurrencies solve issues related to economic justice?
There have been a total of 73 SEC actions against Ripple over XRP. Unfortunately, it’s affecting smaller sites, like this one.
The Richmond Fed says Amazon isn’t big enough to have its own private cryptocurrency. That makes me wonder about Facebook and its Diem project. Did the social media giant approach cryptocurrencies the way it did because Mark Zuckerberg didn’t think his company was big enough to have its own cryptocurrency?
More Bitcoin Fodder
Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller wants to experiment with bitcoin investing.
Robert Kiyosaki tells crypto investors to quit whining and buy the dip. In other words, don’t be a dip!
A Chinese firm has invested $9 million in a bitcoin farm in Kazakhstan. Don’t even act like you know where that is.
Oops! BlockFi mistakenly rewarded users with bitcoin worth millions of dollars.
Iran is allegedly using bitcoin mining to circumvent sanctions.
Russia is allowing crypto payments under contracts.
Peruvians are flocking to bitcoin after the recent presidential election.
Overheard on Twitter
And we’re back above 40k. Next stop, 50k
— Tyler Winklevoss (@tyler) May 27, 2021
All right, that’s enough for today. See you on the moon.
First published at Cryptocracy at Substack. Get the most relevant and up-to-date crypto news weekly by subscribing to Cryptocracy.